How to Survive a Fire without Really Dying
by Etrixan
Summary: They say the first time you do anything new is the hardest. For Parrish, the first time wasn't hard. After all, how hard was it to sit, hand-cuffed to the steering wheel, while a co-worker poured gasoline over you and then lit it? Pinch-hit for the 2015 Teen Wolf Reverse Bang.
1. Dig a Fire Pit and Line It with Stones

Pinch-hit for the 2015 Teen Wolf Reverse Bang on livejournal. Since bangs, no matter which direction, are complicated to run, acknowledgement must go to _chosenfire28_ and the other moderators for running it. I bow to their dedication and skills.

 **Art Post** : "Playing with Fire" at http: [/] archive of our [/] works [/] 4391702

 **Artist** : _jkivela_ / _radlilim_

 **Characters/Pairings** : Jordan Parrish. Cameos by most of the pack, Derek Hale, and a couple original characters. / No pairings (although Jordan wouldn't be adverse to some slash-action with Derek).

 **Warnings** : mild violence in flashbacks; canon-compliant, non-permanent character death.

 **Note** : The art was created and I started writing before episode 1 of season 5 aired, so the only thing we knew about Parrish is that he survived being burned to death by Deputy Haigh. Meaning this could've been canon-compliant for an itty-bitty portion of time, but definitely isn't anymore. Cross-posted to my AO3 account.

* * *

They say the first time you do anything new is the hardest. For Parrish, the first time wasn't hard. After all, how hard was it to sit, hand-cuffed to the steering wheel, while a co-worker poured gasoline over you and then lit it?

Not hard at all.

Life-alteringly terrifying, but not hard.

What was hard was not killing Haigh afterwards.

Parrish had come to, naked and pissed, still sitting in the smoldering remains of his cruiser, and all he could remember was Haigh, putting in his earbuds so he wouldn't have to listen to his partner scream.

Jordan had died that night. He'd sat in the fire and watched his skin turn red, then black. He'd breathed in the flames and _felt_ his lungs burn. He'd died—last breath, white light, the whole shebang. Then he wasn't any more. He wasn't dead. And he wasn't human either. He was a _thing_. A super-weird, supernatural creature _who could survive being burned to death_ and he hated knowing that about himself.

He didn't want to be different. He didn't want to be weird. His brother was weird, with his green-hair, dermal piercings, and corneal tattoos. His parents were weird, with their alien conspiracy theories and hippy-beads left-over from the 70s.

Jordan was a cop. That was supposed to be the opposite of weird.

If he hadn't been a cop Parrish would've killed Haigh, and he would have enjoyed it.


	2. Gather Tinder, Kindling and Fuel Wood

Parrish's weekly phone call to his parents took on an extra-special surreal edge as soon as he said "A co-worker tried to kill me. He tried to burn me to death."

They always used speakerphone so Jordan knew both his mom and dad could hear him, but for a moment, there was only the hum of his father's wave distorter used to stop both government mind control signals and official eavesdroppers (available for only three easy payments of $29.99).

Then, in the background, he heard his father give a triumphant shout. "I knew it!"

"You're okay?" his mom asked in the hushed, low voice she normally reserved for informing him of their latest "proof" of governmental cover-up—serious, saddened, and a little-bit awed at their nerve. "You sound okay."

"I'm fine," Parrish replied evenly. "But I shouldn't be. So I was wondering, if… If there was something either of you would like to tell me," he said slowly and with emphasis, like a dumb tourist trying to force the locals to understand English.

"I knew it!" his dad repeated. His voice was a _lot_ louder, so Parrish knew he'd shifted closer to the phone. That was a big thing, because his dad usually stayed at least three feet back from the phone.

For whatever reason, three feet was what his father believed to be the effective range limit of various government and alien mind-control signals. For him to move closer, meant his father was going to say something he considered important enough to risk the government eavesdroppers.

Okay, _that_ conspiracy theory actually turned out to be true—didn't mean Jordan was going to buy into the rest of them, but he'd _burned_ to death last week…

Jordan braced himself to find out he was some kind of quarter-blood demi-god, like out of that young-adult book series. He just hoped he didn't actually end up with a satyr as his new partner. He'd take a werewolf over a satyr. At least he knew the Alpha.

"What did you know, dad?" His voice stuck in his throat, and it was barely louder than the distorter.

Oh, God. They were going to tell him his grandmother had consorted with faeries! He was an alien they'd found in a pod in the wild…

"I knew they'd done something to you in the army!" his father whisper-shouted. "Secret tests, you didn't even know about."

All the tension flowed out of Parrish so fast he felt light-headed.

"It makes sense, though, don't it?" his dad went on. "Too many soldiers dying makes the government look bad, so they'd want to alter your DNA so that it could withstand things like explosions and fire…"

"Oh, honey," his mother said to him, voice filled with distress. "I knew we should've gotten you checked out for implants or gene-splicing when you got back."

Jordan let the familiar words wash over him in a burr both odd and soothing. His parents were weird, and completely whacked out about a lot of things, but there was absolutely no doubt that they cared about him. They didn't entirely approve of the choices he'd made, but they loved him just the same.

"I was thinking more of anything Grandpa Radmilo might have told you, Dad. You know family stories, legend. Myths from 'The Old Country'…" Parrish nudged.

"Why would you want to know that stuff?" his father asked, baffled. "Your _deda_ was crazy!"


	3. Stack Tinder and Kindling

"So."

Parrish looked up to see the sheriff's son, rocking on his feet, looking uncomfortable but determined. Parrish didn't mind Stiles. He was basically a good kid—even if he was neck-deep in all of Beacon Hills' weirdnesses, and seemed determined to drag the Sheriff's Office into it with him.

It had been two weeks since their return from the church ruins at La Iglesia and the showdown with not-dead Kate Argent and not-dead Peter Hale. The first week had been quiet while everyone recovered. Week two, however, Lydia and Stiles had descended, asking him question after question about his life, his family history, his emotions, his military training—they were almost as bad as his parents for the theories they'd come up with to explain… To try to explain what had happened to him.

Quite frankly, he'd had enough of it, and so he finished the report he was working on, signed it, and shifted it to his completed pile. Then he flipped the page in his notebook and started on the next one. Maybe Stiles would go away.

Stiles still stood in front of his desk, rocking on his heels, hands buried deep in his pockets, looking both nervous and determined.

Parrish managed nearly a full page before he finally looked up to glare at the boy. It was his 'go away, I'm busy' stare.

It worked on Stiles about as well as the sheriff's 'this is an official investigation so go away' stare.

"Soo…" Stiles repeated, drawing out the tiny word.

"Yes?" Jordan used his "official" voice. The one that said 'I may be forced to be polite to you, but don't expect me to be happy about it.'

Stiles was immune to _that_ as well.

"So we haven't figured out what you are yet," Stiles said matter-of-factly, and Parrish ground his teeth. He was a 'what' now. Not a 'who'. It pissed him off.

"I'm a cop," Jordan stated, because he needed to say it. Cops were human. Cops were normal.

"Well, _yeahhh_ ," Stiles agreed, barely hiding an eye roll. Aside from the 'you're an idiot' tone, it was oddly comforting. It meant someone thought it perfectly acceptable for a supernatural thing to be a cop, even if it was Stiles. Then Stiles had to blow it: "It's the other thing we need to figure out."

Parrish shifted his attention back to the paperwork on his desk. "You've already admitted you don't know _what_ I am," he said dismissively. "I can't think of anything else that needs figuring out."

"Um. The whole 'burned to death but not dead' thing?" Stiles argued.

Parrish's jaw clenched so hard he felt it in his tail-bone. "I was fine not knowing for 23 years. I'll be fine again."

"It sooo doesn't work that way around here, dude. I know. I've tried."

The tone of Stiles' voice had Parrish looking at him before he'd even processed the words. There was a look in the kid's eyes. One he'd seen on his squad mates in Afghanistan. One he saw in the mirror on certain days, after certain nights… it was a look that didn't belong on a 17-year old middle-class suburban kid. But last year a nogitsune—a dark fox spirit—had taken Stiles over and it had killed… so many.

They'd all ignored the signs that something had been wrong with Stiles—or rather, they'd ignored the signs that something _supernatural_ was wrong with Stiles.

Parrish wanted to ignore the supernatural whatever inside himself, too. In fact, he wanted to ignore everything that wasn't a straight-up crime. Unfortunately, the kid was probably right.

Jordon sighed. "What do you want to do?" he asked. "I'm not letting you set me on fire," he added before Stiles could suggest it.

To his credit, Stiles looked horrified rather than disappointed. "No, dude. No. Just… Ugh," he sputtered. "I was thinking you could try burning down a tree."

It was Jordan's turn to look horrified.


	4. Ignite Tinder and Blow Gently at Base

"You have to concentrate."

"I _am_ concentrating." Jordan was concentrating so hard he was sweating, but the little twig in his hand didn't burst into flames, didn't smolder, didn't do anything but be a twig.

"Concentration won't help–"

Lydia snorted delicately. "You would say that."

Stiles ignored her. "–it's the _feel_ of it that's got to be right"

"Well, I'm _feeling_ pretty damned annoyed," Parrish said, hoping to cut off this argument before they started again. In the last three days he'd sat through enough of Stiles and Lydia's "discussions" to know that A) Lydia always won (or Stiles always backed down, but same thing), B) they really did just want to help him (no ulterior motives or making him join their "pack") and C) neither knew what the actual fuck they were talking about.

They tossed theories and "experiments" at him, but it was all new-agey, woo-woo stuff that Jordan thought he'd left behind in his parents' foil-lined trailer. Worse, Stiles liked to throw Star Wars quotes at him, but he this wasn't the Force he was trying to access, and he'd never wanted to be a Jedi, so saying "the Force is what gives a Jedi his power" to him wasn't helpful.

The truth was, until they could figure out what type of creature he was, neither one of them could help him much.

"Guys, stop pressuring him." That was Scott—a recent addition to these little research sessions.

Parrish wasn't sure why Scott was coming too, except that he was The Alpha. As if that gave him a divine right to be involved in all the freaky supernatural stuff that went on in his territory. Either that or it was part of the best friend, bro-code to spend fruitless hours in the woods watching some dude fail to do _anything_.

Even Lydia seemed to be losing patience with his lack of progress.

Surprisingly, she'd been the one to suggest lighting him on fire again, not the boys. He hadn't had to say no: they'd done it for him.

"Maybe if he gets angry," Lydia said.

This time it was Stiles' turn to snort. "Oh, sure. It works for the Hulk."

In a different moment, Parrish would've snorted with him. He'd always liked the Hulk, but a large, green rage-monster wasn't the greatest role model for a public servant.

"Any strong emotion then." Lydia shrugged shoulders tight with frustration. "Anger, fear, pain."

Stiles gave a jerky little nod. "They do release a crap-load of chemicals and hormones into the system."

"I bet he was feeling all of those in his car when Haigh… You know," Scott eyes were large, sympathetic but Parrish did his best to ignore it. He did not need a teenage werewolf feeling pity for _him_.

Instead, he forced himself to speak. "I wasn't too happy, no." It reminded them that he was here, too. An actual person who could speak for himself. With sarcasm, even.

Scott looked away, but now Stiles was staring at him. "It's tough to fake those," Stiles mused.

Lydia's brows rose, she cocked her hip, and her lips lifted in a half-smile, and Parrish knew she'd steered the conversation this way deliberately, in order to make a point. He even had a good idea what it was…

"I'm not doing it."

"But you _survived._ " Like it was the simplest thing in the world. No different from taking a stroll on the beach, or boiling water.

"Once," he argued, same as always. "I survived once. And until we know what kind of fire creature I am, there's no guarantee that I'll survive it again."

Lydia flipped her hair, which was as close as she came to admitting that someone other than her was right.

"Maybe you just need to learn how to channel your inner Fire Lord," Scott suggested. "Like, maybe you should learn Kung Fu."

Stiles hit him, so Parrish didn't have to. "This is not The Last Airbender, dude." He paused. "And even if it was, the Fire Lord was evil. We don't want Deputy Parrish turning evil."

"Oh yeah," Scott nodded thoughtfully. "Your dad would be pissed."

Lydia slammed a hand over her face. Parrish would've done the same, except he was still holding the stupid twig.

"He could turn out to be Zuko," Stiles suggested happily. Both boys smiled at him as if he knew why that was a good thing.

"Enough!" Lydia stomped her foot. "This is not one of your animés."

"Actually," Stiles said, "There's debate over whether The Last Airbender can be called an animé, since the creators were American. In fact–"

"I don't care. It doesn't help."Lydia raised her hand to stop the flow of useless information.

It was kind of odd that he'd grown to—not enjoy—but be reassured by these stupid-ass sessions. Lydia was a banshee with the ability to sense death, Scott was some kind of über-alpha wolf, and Stiles had hosted an evil chaos spirit, and yet they were still teenagers. Still, goofy. Still normal.

"Actually," Scott said slowly. "Actually, it might."

"How will a kid's show help me," Parrish asked, ignoring Stiles' squeak of outrage.

"Well, because the movements just helped Aang control where the power went, but first he had to tap into the elements from within himself, right?"

Parrish didn't get it.

Judging from Lydia's eyebrow neither did she. Stiles, however… "Ooh, ooh, ooh. It's like you and the wolf," he said, waving his arms dangerously. "It's just there, inside you, and all you gotta do is–"

"–let it come forward. That's exactly it!"

The two teenagers grinned at each other, perfectly in sync. Parrish had only Lydia with whom to share a WTF look.

"I'm not a were… anything," Parrish pointed out. "There's no wolf inside me."

"Dude, I know that," Scott protested. "But there is heat and fire."

"No, there's not." Parrish could attest to that. Even in the heat of the Iraqi sun, he'd always stayed cool. He'd never developed the kind of heat problems that the rest of his team had suffered. They'd actually called him "Ice Man" for a while, until he'd pointed out that they were army not navy, and this wasn't an 80s pop movie.

After that they'd called him "Frosty" and Parrish had kind of wished for Ice Man back.

"Some part of you is attuned to fire," Scott argued. "Maybe it was triggered by being set on fire."

"Like the full moon triggers your most wolfish behavior?" Stiles suggested.

"Exactly!"

"But that would mean–"

"That I was right." To her credit, Lydia didn't sound _too_ smug. She didn't have to: her posture said it all.

Parrish was already shaking his head. "I'm not letting you pour gasoline on me–"

"Dude, no!" Scott agreed. "But maybe chicken?"

"Put my hand over a lighter and see if I burst into flames?" he asked, just so it was clear.

"I dunno. Maybe?" Scott said while Stiles shrugged. Parrish glared at both of them.

"What will that prove?" he demanded.

"It'll prove whether or not you're burn-resistant," Lydia said. "Which will help us narrow our search parameters."

"And if I'm not 'burn-resistant'?" Parrish asked with a reasonable amount of sarcasm.

Lydia said nothing. Scott gave him a blank look. Stiles half-raised his hand. "I have a fully stocked first aid kit in my jeep," he said. "And Scott's a decent medic." Scott was now nodding furiously. Even Lydia looked like she didn't completely disagree.

"Fine," Parrish said through clenched jaws. "Who's got the lighter?"

It was almost comical the way Stiles and Scott bounced dismayed looks between them.

For a moment Jordan thought he'd get out of it due to lack of preparation…

"I brought a lighter."

…and then Lydia spoke.

Of course, it wasn't a cheap disposable she pulled out of her expensive bag, but a shiny, new Zippo, the kind guaranteed not to blow out in a wind. She held it out to him like he was going to burn his own arm. He stared at it, and made no attempt to grab it. She offered it to Stiles, who suddenly looked sick, and finally Scott. Scott looked like he wanted to refuse too, but one look at Stiles and his jawed firmed. A deep breath and he lifted his chin to look Parrish in the eyes.

He didn't look sixteen anymore, is what Parrish thought. He looked like a leader who'd survived battle and lost friends, and knew it wasn't over yet.

This was going to happen.

They were going to prove once and for all that he, Jordan Parrish, wasn't human. If he got through without getting hurt, he would no longer be able to say it had been a fluke, a freak happening that had nothing to do with his biology. He wouldn't be able to tell himself that Lydia and Stiles were mistaken.

Sweat broke out all over his body—hot and chill at the same time. He felt physically ill.

He recognized it as his fear response even as the memory came back of being trapped, of being bound to the car. The smell of gasoline surrounded him, poisoning the air. Haigh, a blurred shape on the other side of the windshield. And the heat. The pain.

Around him….

 _In_ him…

"Holy shit!"

It was Stiles. That was Stiles' voice, not Haigh's.

Once he realized that then the rest of his present surroundings returned to him.

He was in the woods with the sheriff's son and his friends, holding a twig he hadn't been able to set alight with the power of his mind.

"Whoa, _dude,_ " Scott crooned in awe.

He was also covered in flames…

Lydia gave him an appreciative full-body look.

…but no clothes.

The twig still wasn't burning


	5. Add Fuel As Needed

"You know, the Chinese used to weave asbestos into cloth to make it both fire-resistant and white," said Kira Yakimura. She was Scott's girlfriend and had come along to keep the alpha company since Lydia and Stiles were busy with other things.

"Is that so?" Jordan asked, barely paying attention. The two teenagers weren't even pretending to give him instructions. Instead, they tossed around a lacrosse ball and made googley-eyes at each other, while he held another twig. Still unable to light the damn thing on fire.

"When the properties were explained to traders along the silk route, its origin got garbled–"

"Or ignored," Scott interrupted.

"Or ignored," his girlfriend agreed. "When it got to Italy, the Europeans decided the robes were made from a furry fire salamander that only lived in China."

Kira wasn't even out of breath at their rather hard-core training session. But, of course, she wouldn't be. She was another one of the bump-in-the-night creatures with super powers that made Beacon Hills their home.

"And how does that help me?" Parrish asked, frustrated. He'd rather be handing out traffic tickets—which was becoming one of his more frequently assigned duties now that things had calmed down. Writing tickets, manning the desk—boring, easy duties typically given to rookies.

Frustrated by more than his failed fire-starting, Jordan dropped the twig. "This isn't working. I'd be far more useful as a cop. You know: that thing I normally do."

It was close to whining, too close, and if he could've Parrish would've unsaid it. However, it got Scott and Kira to stop their awkward flirting and look at him. Scott was all big-sympathetic eyes, which he could've done without, but Kira actually _looked_ , thinking.

"Maybe we've been doing this all wrong," she said.

 _Ya think?_ Jordan thought but managed not to say.

"We've been trying to get you to burn a twig, but what if that's not how your power works."

This time it was harder to keep the " _obviously_ " unsaid.

Kira heard it anyway because she looked away and shifted nervously. It made Jordan feel guilty. "What's your idea, Kira?" he said. "At this point, I'm really open to suggestions."

It helped a little. She perked up and managed to steal a quick glance in his direction. "Well, trying to light a twig on fire is trying to control something outside yourself. None of our powers do that." She nodded at each of them in turn. "Our powers usually only affect ourselves. Right?" She hopped up on her toes a little.

Scott gave her a wide grin. "Yeah, that's totally right. Your fox can't do anything unless it touches something. I can only control my wolf. And Liam a little. But that's only because he's my beta."

"And Lydia's a banshee. I mean, she can predict other people's deaths, but she can't…. well. Do much else, really."

Did either of them realize what awful examples they were using?

"So I should stop trying to light the twig on fire, and what? Light myself?" he asked sarcastically.

At least, _he'd_ meant it sarcastically. _They_ seemed to think it was a sign of brilliance. It took several minutes of both of them explaining why it was a great idea for Jordan to agree that _maybe_ he should try it. Even then, it took him an embarrassing amount of time before he could even begin to settle his mind. Minutes filled with "It hadn't been too bad that last time" and "It barely even hurt" and "I'll be in control this time" before he could focus.

"…so just remember what you were feeling the last time, and feel that again," Scott was saying when Parrish tuned back into his surroundings.

"Is that how you learned to control your wolf?" Parrish asked—because he was curious, not because he was procrastinating. Definitely not procrastinating.

"No, well sorta?" Scott answered. "I had to find an anchor. Someone to think of who would calm me down." There was grief in his voice—still raw but healing—and Jordan remembered the girl killed by the nogitsune. She'd obviously been Scott's anchor but Parrish knew she'd also been the boy's girlfriend.

"I don't need someone to calm me down," he pointed out.

"You need someone to heat you up," Kira said in a perky voice.

Parrish looked at her, wondering if she understood all the possible interpretations of what she'd said, but even thinking that she hadn't didn't stop Parrish's mind from thinking of people who made him hot: Charlize Theron, Chris Evans, Marisia from the DMV, Derek Hale…

Then he stopped.

It felt weird thinking those thoughts around minors—pervy and gross.

"Not helping," he said shortly.

"Well, no, but once I had my anchor, all I had to do was remember what the wolf felt like, inside me, at any particular moment, for me to transform just that much," Scott explained.

"So if you want to be claws only…" Stiles nudged.

"I let myself remember only what it feels like to have my claws out." Scott flashed his claws in demonstration.

It was more of that woo-woo stuff, but Parrish could kind of understand what Scott meant because this time he had two reference points to examine: the car with Haigh, and playing chicken with Lydia. Both times he'd felt stressed— _very_ stressed. He'd felt himself burning, before any fire was lit, picturing himself as some of his buddies who'd been ignited by improvised incendiary devices in Iraq. He'd smelled their flesh burning—just another roasted meat no different from beef or pork.

He pushed that memory away. It was too visceral to give him the control he wanted. Instead, he concentrated on how _his_ body had felt the two times he'd burned. Hot. And cold.

Cold fire in his veins. That moment of breathless, sweaty panic when you realize you're going to die.

His breathing sped up. His palms got clammy.

He tried to push that feeling to his fingers—confine it to one body part instead of all over. He looked at his hand, and knew what it looked like burning…

And then it was.

"Holy shit!" That was Scott. "It worked!" And Kira.

Parrish rotated his hand. Flames, unnaturally bright, followed, curling around his skin like the softest breeze. His fingers felt cold.

"You could be Ghost Rider without any CGI, man," Scott enthused. "That is so awesome!"

Ghost Rider… A dead vengeance-demon guy on a motorcycle. Again, not the best role model for a cop.

He didn't want this to be his life, and the bitter frustration that he hadn't escaped, that he _couldn't_ escape, swept over him like needle-sharp frost.

He didn't need to see Scott and Kira jumping away from him to know what had happened…

"Please tell me my clothes survived," he said wearily.

Scott's gaze swept down but Kira, bright red under her skin's natural color, kept her eyes steadfastly above his neck. She shook her head in short, quick jabs.

"Sorry, dude."

Parrish just sighed.


	6. Keep the Fire Small and Under Control

"Why did you bring him here?"

Parrish opened his mouth to apologize, but Stiles was already pushing into Derek Hale's apartment. "Because it's raining?"

"And that means it's a good idea to bring a pyromancer into my home," Derek's voice was sardonic, but he stepped aside anyway.

"Pyromancers try to divine the future by looking in fires," Stiles threw over his shoulder. "Deputy Parrish just bursts into flames."

Jordan pulled his gym bag up higher on his shoulder. It held spare clothes, snacks and a decent sports drink—everything he'd learned to bring with him over the last month and a half of failed practice. "I'm really sorry about this," he said as he passed.

Derek gave him one long look, top to bottom. "I have wooden floors, you know." The comment wasn't directed at him.

"Well, so far he hasn't managed to light anything but himself on fire, so I think your floors are safe," Stiles said as he bounced back their way. He was jittery, practically vibrating with the need to be elsewhere, doing something. Parrish knew exactly how the kid felt.

"Look, I've gotta go," Stiles said, side-stepping towards the door.

Derek stopped him with a fist twined into Stiles' T-shirt. "Why did you bring him here?" he said, quiet and intimidating. Parrish dropped his bag and shifted his stance, ready to jump in if Derek became violent—werewolf be-damned.

To his credit, Stiles didn't seem very intimidated. "Um, 'cause he needs someone to talk him out once he's lit up?" he answered, with just a hint of snark. "You once claimed to be good at that. Talking people out of unwanted transformations."

"And why aren't you staying?"

"Because Malia's freaking out about a math test and I need to help her." It was simply said—absolutely sincere.

For a moment, it looked like Derek was going to hit Stiles after all and Parrish shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Then the werewolf flung the teen away. "Go."

Stiles twirled away, patting his shirt back into shape. "I'm going! Jeez! You ruin more of my shirts that way…" He was still muttering as the door clanged shut behind him.

Then it was just him and Derek Hale.

Parrish looked at the former alpha, and all he could see was a naked Derek tearing a berserker apart with his bare hands.

"So," Derek said. "You're having a trouble transforming."

"Actually, that isn't the problem," Parrish mimicked Derek's dry tone exactly. "It's keeping control of it that, uh, keeps getting away from me."

Derek was silent, considering. Then he pursed his lips, and gave a sharp nod. "Let's work on that then." He turned and led Parrish towards the large windows at the front of his loft. It was an enormous space, mostly empty.

"What do you usually light up" Derek asked casually, like it was no big deal to be able to set your skin on fire.

"My hand." Parrish lifted his left hand, rotating it.

"And how easy is it for you to light your fire?" Derek smirked. At any other time—and if he hadn't heard a thousand variations on the theme—he would've tried flirting a little. After all, he hadn't forgotten La Iglesia where he'd seen Derek Hale naked…

But it wasn't "another time" and he _had_ heard all the cheesy fire lines before. Several times each. "It takes me a few minutes. Like ten." Sometimes fifteen.

Derek's smirk faded. "And how long can you hold it?"

Parrish sighed. "A couple minutes."

"And you don't burn anything else."

Parrish looked at the wood flooring and furniture. "My clothes usually go, but nothing in my pockets really. If I've held something in my palm for a while, it could go up, but not if I held it by my fingers. Lydia thinks it's my sweat that's flammable. That I secrete it." Like a toxic frog.

She'd actually proven it by lighting a palm-held twig with her Zippo. It had burned like a pressed fireplace log—pretty colors and everything.

Derek didn't pursue that idea, however. Instead he frowned and stared at Parrish intently. "What are you thinking when you lose control."

"I'm not… I try not to be thinking of anything but, you know, controlling the fire."

"You try…" Derek's voice was dry as unbuttered, day old toast.

"I worked in bomb disposal in Iraq," Parrish spat out. "I've had friends burn–"

Derek had a hand up. "You don't have to tell me about how awful that is. I know."

Parrish shut up. He'd lost friends: Derek had lost his whole family. He cleared his throat. "It's just, bad memories."

"Yeah."

Quiet fell between them. It wasn't easy, but there was an understanding to it. It felt nice.

"So where's… Bræden?" Parrish half-figured that wasn't her real name, but it was the only one he knew.

"Bounty," Derek said. "In Oregon."

"You didn't go with her?" After Mexico, in the morning before they left the ruined church, it had seemed like that was the way it was going—that Derek had been saying good-bye.

"Not this time," Derek answered with a quirk of his lips. "The alpha up there isn't friendly."

"That sucks," he said, because it did. Having to limit where you could go based on something like that… Mind you, people did it all the time, Jordan realized. Blacks and whites avoiding different areas of the same city because it was dangerous for them to go there. Gays avoiding whole states...

It still sucked, but Derek just shrugged.

"Will I have to check in with the local alpha, if I go travelling?"

Derek shook his head. "You're not a werewolf, so… No." He sat down on his sofa, but leaned forward, staring at Parrish. "Have you discovered what you are?"

Whatever ease Parrish had felt in Derek's presence, vanished. "No. No luck."

Derek nodded still staring. "Do you want to know?"

"I kind of have to know, if I'm going to learn to use it." Jordan tried to keep the bitterness out of his tone.

He wasn't sure he succeeded, but Derek's response was mild. "Not what I asked."

 _Do you want to know…_

He _should_ want to know.

This time the quiet wasn't comfortable—it revealed too much.

Derek broke it by leaning back, stretching his arms out along the back of the sofa. "When Scott was first bitten, he hated it—called it a curse.," Derek said. "It cured his asthma, made him a lacrosse star, and he called it a curse. All because it meant he might not get the girl."

Jordan forced a chuckle. "That's really not–"

Derek talked right over him. "He wouldn't get the girl because it made him different."

Jordan's mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked together.

"It's hard being different," Derek said—no pity, no empathy, just a statement. "That's why clubs form, and support groups. People want a community— _their_ community."

Derek tipped his head a little, and his soft hazel eyes were cold, impersonal. Jordan braced himself. "Is that why you joined the army?" Derek asked in the same flat tones as before. "To surround yourself with people just like you? All of you, the same—same hair, same clothes, same speech, same culture."

His heart pounded. "No. I… It opened opportunities."

It was weak, but true. He'd known he wanted to escape his parents' lifestyle the fall when he was twelve and all the kids he played with went to school, but not him. His brother had felt the same, but Jericho escaped with parties and drugs. Jordan chosen the army. Considering his spotty education, and the fact they had no money for college anyway, the army had been the logical choice.

It had been escape, that's all. And skill acquisition…

Derek wasn't finished. "Then you became a cop. More uniforms. More being just like the person next to you."

Parrish froze. "No. That's not…" His skills were suitable for police work. He fit in–

His breath wheezed out of him. He couldn't pull in a replacement.

Was it so simple?

"Breathe. Just breathe." The voice was distorted. It was too close. He didn't know it.

He felt ice grow inside him. He knew what it meant, but he didn't care. The voice was too close. He was too vulnerable.

He could see the flames, feel them like air flowing over his body, but inside he was cold. Inhuman. It was so easy being cold. Nothing could hurt him.

"…rrish. Deputy Jor…" The voice was garbled. Distant, but growing closer.

"You are Jordan Parrish, a deputy in the Beacon Hills Sherriff's Office." Clear and firm. Statement, not question.

Everything clicked back into place inside him. He looked up into Derek Hale's very human eyes, and let the fire die. Only then did his skin feel warm.

He looked down at his very naked body in resigned disgust. "Damn it."

"Don't worry about it," Derek said easily. "New werewolves are always wrecking their clothes."

It was good to know, but it didn't stop Parrish from grabbing a pair of sweats from his bag. He now bought them in bulk from the second-hand store, unwilling to spend lots of money on something he was likely to destroy within minutes of putting them on. Unfortunately, that meant they didn't always fit right. This set was slightly too big, the elastic was going, and the knot was locked fast so he couldn't even tighten it.

The sweats slid down until they caught on his hip bones. He waited, but they didn't go any farther. He grabbed them with one hand anyway.

"I didn't actually believe Stiles when he said you don't burn anything but yourself." Derek handed him a glass of water. Parrish hadn't even seen him leave. He took the glass and drained it.

"I was standing right next to you," Derek went on. "It was like standing in front of a space heater."

"Space heaters can be dangerous," Parrish pointed out.

"Only if used improperly." Derek lifted his own glass.

"You don't think I'm dangerous?"

"I think you're reacting on instinct, and on some level you know I'm not a threat," Derek countered. "Doesn't mean you can't be dangerous, just that you can't control when you will be."

"So what you're advice for fixing me?" Parrish demanded.

Derek lifted an eyebrow even as he shifted his gaze away. Jordan didn't think it was a good sign. "You don't need to be fixed," Derek said, proving Jordan's people-reading skills were good. "I can maybe make it easier for you to call it out, to get it back under control before you burn all your clothes off, but really, that's just practice and experimentation, and those are both on you."

Parrish wanted to growl in frustration: he could be talking to his parents, trying to dig out his family history, but instead he was here because Stiles said Derek Hale could fix him. "C'mon You're supposed to be the guru."

Derek snorted. "No, that's Deaton."

Parrish had met Alan Deaton. He understood the remark. He didn't appreciate it.

Across from him, Derek signed. "The only way to have complete control over all aspects of your being—supernatural or not—is to _accept_ all aspects of your being. Supernatural or not."

More of that hippy-dippy, woo-woo stuff that Lydia and Stiles had thrown at him.

"You really want to punch me right now, don't you." Derek didn't sound concerned. "But you won't because you've accepted that aggressive impulses are part of being human, and you know that you don't have to give in to them."

"I control them. I control my universe." He lifted his hands, thumbs and index fingers making meditation circles. "'Ohm' and all that crap."

Derek shrugged. "More like you've learned to ignore most of them." He sat back down on the couch, gesturing for Jordan to sit across from him. "People always feel impulses, all the time. 'That person looks hot and I want to kiss them.' 'I'm hungry and that candy bar looks tasty.' 'That person is a dick, and I'd like to punch them.'" He smiled. "All impulses we have every day, that we've learned to ignore."

"Not everyone," Jordan responded dryly. "I'm a cop, remember?"

Derek grinned appreciatively.

Parrish knew many of the deputies in Beacon Hills thought Derek Hale was a "freakishly scary dude", and sometimes he was—when he frowned, Derek could be very intimidating. When he smiled, however, he revealed cute bunny teeth that made Jordan's breath catch. If Hale had been uninvolved… But he wasn't, and Jordan didn't poach.

To cover his response, Parrish sat down.

"So all I need to do is accept my inner monster, and everything will be fine."

That made Hale's grin disappear. "It's not what's inside you that makes you a monster; it's what you do."

"Yeah, well. I don't seem to _do_ anything." A little whiney, but honest.

"You survive," Derek said with a shrug. "Sometimes that's hard enough."

Parrish remembered Derek's history and looked away, embarrassed.

Derek rapped him on the knee. "Hey. I don't need pity." He stood up, taking both their glasses with him.

Parrish watched him but he didn't really see him. His thoughts turned inward, towards his childhood when he didn't want anyone to know they lived in a camper trailer lined in foil. Or to the army, when he could make lewd comments about Angelina Jolie all he wanted, but never Brad Pitt. Always a part of himself he'd kept hidden.

"How do you live with it?" he asked. When he looked up at Derek, the guy was halfway through a sink-full of dishes.

"When I was a kid, I had my family so it wasn't even an issue," Derek replied, rinsing off a plate. Without thought, Parrish went to the kitchen and grabbed a towel—too uncomfortable watching someone else work when he could help.

"After the fire, I was angry."

"Angry," Jordan said in disbelief. "That's not very Zen."

Derek shrugged. "I thought it would be better once I was an alpha, and had my own pack, but it wasn't."

"You couldn't have kno–"

"Yes, I could." Derek stopped him. "I was never meant to be the alpha. My mom was healthy and strong, and my sister, Laura, was exactly like her. Even Peter was more alpha than me."

"Peter? The one who tried to kill Scott?" Parrish asked, confused.

"Yeah, the crazy one," Derek confirmed. "He had a different kind of strength."

"Yeah, devious and underhanded, backstabbing strength," Parrish muttered.

Derek ignored him. "I didn't even want to be the alpha, but when Peter was lying there, vulnerable, I was still angry. Plus, my other option was letting Scott kill him and take the alpha powers. A sixteen-year-old, who didn't even want to be a werewolf, would become my alpha. I thought it would be a disaster."

Parrish thought of how Scott was with his friends, so protective and supportive. Granted, he hadn't known McCall back then, but…

Derek opened up the drain. "Becoming the alpha didn't fix my problems. My family was still dead. I didn't magically know how to be a leader or run a pack. I was trying to recreate my family with these teenage strangers, but they weren't who I wanted them to be."

"Are you still angry?" Jordan kept his head down, watching his towel-covered hand circle round and round the pan.

Derek shook his head, wiping down the counter, putting the finishing touches on the chore. "I gave up my alpha powers to save my sister, and for five months after that I slowly lost my wolf. Everything I'd put value on, I lost. And yet I still lived, I still helped." He paused, holding the cloth. "Being human hadn't changed who I was."

It was Parrish's turn to look away.

"I don't know if I can believe that."

Derek threw down the cloth. "Then you can't," he said and he walked away.


	7. Allow the Wood to Burn Completely to Ash

Parrish stared at Derek as he walked back to the sofa.

 _Then you can't_.

Derek hadn't said it like he was giving up on Parrish. There was no judgement or disappointment. It was a statement, an acceptance that Jordan knew his own limits.

Jordan didn't like limits.

His parents had limited his schooling to what they could control—not maliciously, but because they worried about subliminal indoctrination. The army had expanded his outlook, but within a well-established structure. There was still routine and order in the Sheriff's Office, but there was also that much more freedom.

Actually, when he lined up his life that way, he did like order and structure. Limits...

Maybe his problem with being a monster wasn't in accepting his "phenomenal cosmic power". Maybe it was in not knowing the limits of what he would do with it.

If he thought of his firestarting as knowing how to build bombs from household cleaning products, then this wasn't any different than being in the army. They taught him all this dangerous stuff, but they also told him how to judge the right time and place to use it.

He felt foolish. It wasn't anything the others hadn't told him before, yet, he finally understood.

With newfound purpose, Parrish crossed to the large, empty space in front of the windows. It was getting dark outside; he'd be perfectly visible from the parking lot.

Parrish didn't care.

He lifted his left arm, and thought about limits. His elbow was the limit—no flames higher than his elbow.

He brought forward the memory of being on fire—not from Haigh's attack, and not his friends in Iraq, but of earlier today, and all the failed training sessions. He thought about how cold his bones felt, how warm his skin, but just his lower left arm. Then he replayed that moment of ignition—the spark of fear…

His hand burned, his wrist, halfway down his arm, close to his elbow… But no further.

A cautious check of his innards revealed no change in body temp—no chill, no sweats, all systems normal. It was just his arm on fire.

He focused on his breathing like he would before disarming a bomb, and brought the flames in so that it was like an outline a quarter inch away from his body.

He waited, all his senses on high alert.

No change.

He would've been embarrassed at the sound he made, except he was too fucking happy at having done it.

It was enough for his self-imposed limits to slip, but he reminded himself of the rule he'd decided on, enforced the limits, and the fire flowed back from his shoulder to blaze gently around his wrist and hand.

He looked up from his burning had to see Hale standing not far from him. He stood in his standard pose—arms crossed, legs spread—but there was a small smile on the guy's face.

"I did it!" Jordan said proudly.

Derek's smile deepened. "Yeah, you did."

Jordan smiled back. This was good. He could do this. He wasn't a freak if he could keep it under control.


	8. Never Leave Your Campfire Unattended

Six months later, they were pretty sure he was a fire salamander.

It explained why his body stayed cold even when his skin burned. Why he couldn't make anything else burn just by wanting it. His control still wasn't perfect but it was getting better. He could keep just a fingertip burning long enough to roast a marshmallow. (He hadn't actually been able to _eat_ the marshmallow, but it had been nicely brown.)

It didn't fit perfectly. He couldn't put out fire by touching it; he couldn't assume a lizard shape (something that had reassured everyone), and neither his sweat nor his spit was toxic (which had reassured _him_ ).

All-in-all, he was mostly reconciled to being different. It helped that the not-completely-human people he knew in Beacon Hills, (and there were a lot) were all busy with their completely human lives, doing completely normal things like summer school and goofing off.

The only thing making him angry, making him grind his teeth when he thought about it, was that Sheriff Stilinski had him on desk duty for nearly all his shifts. Even Jorge—whose shoes were still shiny with academy polish—was out on patrol more than he was.

Then one night, there was a huge storm, a semi jack-knifed on the main highway, and a noise complaint at an abandoned mansion on the edge of town.

The monster attacking him hadn't made him burn, but it had killed Parrish just the same. That death didn't stick either.

Suddenly, he wasn't so sure that "fire salamander" fit him at all.

* * *

 **ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS**

Chapter headings cribbed from instructions on buidling a campfire at [www] dot [smokeybear] dotcom, because "only YOU can prevent forest fires!"

Information on fire salamanders gathered from Wikipedia and Monstropedia (of course), and other not so thorough sites, because if you're going to write about something that doesn't exist, you should have all the facts. heh

One of those facts is that the fire salamanders "traditional" territory is the Balkan Peninsula which is why Parrish's paternal grandfather is called " _deda_ "—a Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian word for grandpa, (according to several online translation services.)


End file.
